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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24224953">Stolen Time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MapleMooseMuffin/pseuds/MapleMooseMuffin'>MapleMooseMuffin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Voltron: Legendary Defender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(goes without saying but no s8), 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, POV Alternating, Sort Of, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, boy I am rusty at tagging, following the canon timeline but with soulmate counters, i mean i tried</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:02:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,481</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24224953</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MapleMooseMuffin/pseuds/MapleMooseMuffin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Keith is fourteen when his counter finally comes in. Scrawny and scrappy, his wrist is hardly wide enough to hold all six numbers. They come labeled, years – months – days, just like everyone else’s. A countdown to the end of his supposed soulmate’s life.</p>
  <p>*</p>
  <p>When Shiro buttons his shirt and straightens out his uniform on the morning he’s scheduled to bring the Garrison’s transportable sim to the local high school, he tries as always not to dwell on the numbers that peek out from under his cuff.</p>
  <p>There’s no time to waste thinking about things he can’t change.</p>
  <p>No time at all.</p>
</blockquote><br/>Five times Keith and Shiro's wrists counted each others' days, and one time they didn't.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>(and for those who care I don't demonize adam), (he's barely a character in this honestly), Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Shiro (Voltron), but only in the canonical sense, which is to say they break up by the middle of this piece</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>177</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Star-Crossed: Sheith Soulmate Zine 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Stolen Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi friends! </p>
<p>Been a bit since I posted VLD, huh? This piece was actually in the works for quite a while, as it's my contribution to the free Sheith soulmates zine, Star-Crossed! Please be sure to check out the pdf <a href="https://t.co/YNK4la9Qrn?amp=1">here</a> , because it's full of other wonderful fics and some truly gorgeous artworks all centered around different soulmate aus! </p>
<p>This was the first zine I ever got to be a part of, as well as my first attempt at a 5+1 format fic. (As to the latter, I'm not sure I totally nailed the structure, but I like the piece regardless, and I hope you will too!)</p>
<p>Enjoy!~</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>0.</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               Keith is fourteen when his counter finally comes in. Scrawny and scrappy, his wrist is hardly wide enough to hold all six numbers. They come labeled, years – months – days, just like everyone else’s. A countdown to the end of his supposed soulmate’s life.</p>
<p>               The other boys in his group home all already have theirs. He’s seen them peeking out from under sweatshirt sleeves or proudly framed in stupid soulmate bracelets that box those numbers in like photos in a trophy case. Numbers like eighty, ninety years, branded in bright red on the inside of the right wrist. One boy’s lucky enough to have ninety-four years left on his, while Keith’s roommate frets constantly over his meager fifty-six.</p>
<p>               When the tingling warmth of his counter rising to the surface first subsides, Keith stares blankly at the leading zero for a solid minute. And then he laughs, incredulous but hardly disbelieving.</p>
<p>               08:02:18</p>
<p>               Eight years. Eight years, and then they’ll leave him, too.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               When Shiro buttons his shirt and straightens out his uniform on the morning he’s scheduled to bring the Garrison’s transportable sim to the local high school, he tries as always not to dwell on the numbers that peek out from under his cuff. The medical bracelet does well to hide them, but it’s not enough. It’s not as if he doesn’t <em> know </em>, as if he hasn’t been counting down in his head, ever since he met Adam.</p>
<p>               He could take solace in them. Be selfishly satisfied that, with twelve years left on the clock, he knows Adam won’t have to suffer too long without Shiro, once this disease takes its course. He’d be thirty-two – that’s more than any estimate Shiro’s been given, even from the generous doctors who endeavor not to highlight the tragedy of his fate. Thirty-two could be a good life.</p>
<p>               But he wouldn’t wish his fate on anyone, and especially not Adam. Some mornings Shiro feels so guilty for the numbers blinking on his wrist that he can barely stand to dress himself in front of the mirror.</p>
<p>               Adam refuses to look, or to show Shiro his. <em> It’s too morbid, </em> he says, <em> waiting around for someone else’s death </em>. So Shiro tries not to see it, tries not to let his mind stray.</p>
<p>               It’s hard to say out of sight out of mind, though, with the frequent pulses his bracelet sends through his deteriorating muscles. It’s like a beacon, always drawing his mind back in.</p>
<p>               He tugs his cuff down and gives himself a hard look in the mirror. There’s no time to waste thinking about things he can’t change.</p>
<p>               No time at all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>1.</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               The afternoon is warm for late October, too warm for the battered red hoodie the scrappy kid slouching in front of Shiro is wearing as they stand awkwardly in the juvenile detention center’s parking lot. His name is Keith – Shiro read his name on the list of students handed to him by the teacher a few hours before, but Shiro gives him the chance to introduce himself again.</p>
<p>               He doesn’t miss the way Keith tugs his sleeve down after they shake hands. It’s a common habit among high schoolers, a self-consciousness born from the obsession the world has with those six little digits ticking inside their wrists. But there’s something bitter in the grimace Keith wears, and Shiro feels a stab of empathy shoot through his gut.</p>
<p>               “Here’s my card,” he says to distract them both from thinking about numbers they wish they could change. Keith takes it in his left hand and raises wary eyes to meet Shiro’s. As guarded as the boy is, he wears his confusion openly in his eyes.</p>
<p>               “You’re really letting me go?”</p>
<p>               “Well,” Shiro says, “the only way I could get you out was by signing you up for the Garrison. The address is there,” he gestures to the card. “You’ll show up tomorrow at 0800 hours, ready to move into the dorms. I’ll get your schedule sorted for you.”</p>
<p>               The boy nods mechanically, clearly still processing everything that’s happened in the past five hours. He seems shell shocked in the face of this second chance. It makes Shiro more certain that this was the right move to take.</p>
<p>               Orchestrating a transfer this immediate is going to take a mountain of paperwork, though, and the group home is sending someone out to pick Keith up. Shiro needs to get going if he wants to be there to welcome Keith to campus in the morning.</p>
<p>               He unlocks his reclaimed car – the Garrison’s, actually, and thank god Keith drives as well as he flies the sim because Shiro would be under major fire if he’d wrecked this thing – and hops up into the front seat. He starts up the engine and leans out the window, nodding to the card Keith’s still staring blankly at.</p>
<p>               “I’ll be seeing you bright and early in the morning,” he says.</p>
<p>               Keith looks up at him, eyes almost too big for his face.</p>
<p>               Just a kid. Directionless and packed with more energy than he knows what to do with, probably, but not a bad person. Not a problem to be solved. Shiro wonders how many people have told Keith that, how many people he’s met who’ve believed it. Not enough, he’d bet.</p>
<p>               “Yes, sir,” Keith says. It croaks out of him, quiet and nearly lost under the sound of the engine. Shiro gives him a wide grin and a wave before rolling up the window.</p>
<p>               He winces when he takes up the wheel as a pulse shoots up his arm, reminding him as always of the things he tries to forget. Shiro rolls his wrist to shake off the feeling and fidgets with the medical bracelet. Then he stops.</p>
<p>               Slowly, Shiro shifts his hand. Nudges his bracelet for a clearer look at his wrist.</p>
<p>               44:07:03</p>
<p>               He stares just as blankly at his wrist as Keith stared at the card. Runs his thumb over the numbers half sure and half afraid he’ll rub the error away and the digits will drop back down to twelve. Forty-four years. That’s thirty-two more than they had this morning – it’s <em> double </em> the lifespan Adam was promised as of yesterday.</p>
<p>               He pulls out of the lot with shaking hands and tries to even his breathing, heart rattling around in his chest and questions swirling through his mind. Something must have happened – Adam must have done something that changed his life today.</p>
<p>               He makes it halfway to the base before he caves and calls his boyfriend, a million questions on the tip of his tongue.</p>
<p>               The first that stumbles through is, “How was your day?” Breathless and eager.</p>
<p>               But all he gets is a mildly confused, “Fine? I’ve just been grading papers. Are you okay?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>2.</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               The desert night falls fast. Reds and oranges ignite the sky just as they slow their gliders at the edge of a familiar cliffside. Their spot, established by more than a year of routine races in the vast stretch of desert outside the Garrison base.</p>
<p>               Shiro leans back against his glider, arms crossed and body turned so he can watch the changing beauty of the late summer sky and the way it lights up Keith’s sharpening features. His eyes are still too wide for the rest of his face; big, blue, and bright under a mess of choppy bangs Shiro can barely resist tossing about.</p>
<p>               It’s taken over a year to earn the softness in those eyes and the gentle curve of a smile on Keith’s lips. It floods Shiro’s chest with pride to see Keith letting himself be like this.</p>
<p>               Slowly the deep navies and blues of the night sky drain away any lingering reds and oranges of the sun, and the heat drains out with them. Shiro tugs his leather jacket on, carefully adjusting the sleeve over his bracelet. The numbers beneath are still readable in this low light, and still sitting higher than ever at forty-three years.</p>
<p>               He catches Keith staring, watching him read his wrist in the fading light. Shiro clears his throat and drops his arm.</p>
<p>               Keith’s never mentioned his countdown before, but he still tugs at his sleeves and hides it behind thick bracelets when it’s too hot for sweatshirts and jackets. Shiro’s never pried – as a rule he doesn’t push Keith into telling him things, and he knows Keith is grateful for it. But it isn’t hard to guess that Keith’s counter is low.</p>
<p>               In so many ways, Keith is a lot like Shiro.</p>
<p>               He does it now, too, fidgeting with the leather bracelet around his wrist and tracing his fingers over the skin on either side. Shiro does him the courtesy of not watching, turning back to face the horizon.</p>
<p>               Until Keith speaks.</p>
<p>               “Shiro?” It’s tentative, almost anxious. Shiro turns back and nods for Keith to go on.</p>
<p>               Keith takes a deep breath and frowns, searching for the right words. Shiro straightens up and focuses on his dear friend.</p>
<p>               “I… how do you know when you’ve found your soulmate?”</p>
<p>               Shiro’s careful to keep the surprise out of his face, because Keith is peering up at him with those big, nervous eyes and biting his lip, and Shiro knows better than anyone how quick Keith is to back out of things like this. So instead of being surprised, he focuses on the question. Turns it over slowly in his mind and tries to think of a good answer.</p>
<p>               “I’m not going to tell you that you’ll just know,” he says. Keith nods, eyes serious, and Shiro hopes that’s a good answer to give. “You do sort of have to trust your gut – ask yourself if things feel right with the person. Because if they feel wrong, then they’re not it. Other than that, though…”</p>
<p>               His voice drifts away from him. What can he say, really? It’s not as though he felt a life altering shift in his chest the first time he met Adam. There aren’t any supernatural signs that let you know it’s happened. Except, of course, when that timer finally hits zero.</p>
<p>               Shiro clears his throat and rubs at his wrist.</p>
<p>               “It’s just trial and error, really.”</p>
<p>               “I don’t have time for that,” Keith says, so quietly Shiro thinks it wasn’t meant to be out loud.</p>
<p>               He looks pained, eyes hollow and burning as he stares out at the darkening horizon. Shiro can’t help himself.</p>
<p>               “Hey.”</p>
<p>               He takes two steps closer and plants a comforting hand on Keith’s shoulder. Keith looks up at him, and it’s like a knife to the gut, the way his pain makes Shiro’s heart ache. He’s never wanted to protect someone as deeply as he wants to shield Keith from the worst this world has thrown at him.</p>
<p>               “If this is about your counter,” Shiro says softly, and Keith’s little flinch under his hand is all the confirmation he needs, “try not to get too hung up about it, okay?”</p>
<p>               “It’s in the single digits,” Keith spits, angry but not at Shiro. Shiro’s heart drops out of his stomach.</p>
<p>               “That’s… Jesus. I-I’m sorry, Keith.”</p>
<p>               Single digits for someone so young, and for Keith especially – it’s like some kind of twisted divine joke. At <em> best </em> Keith would be twenty-five when his counter hit zero.</p>
<p>               It takes Shiro a moment to swallow back the aching sympathy lodged in his throat in order to be supportive and encouraging.</p>
<p>               “You know, it doesn’t have to stay that way.” He tugs up his sleeve and lowers his arm, pushing up his bracelet to show Keith his own counter. Keith watches him in confusion, then looks at the numbers and jumps a little, wide eyes flashing back to Shiro. “Ah, yeah that probably seems a little short to you, huh? But you know, two years ago this number was much lower.”</p>
<p>               Keith frowns, brows slowly knitting together. He turns back to Shiro’s wrist and stares. Then, slowly, he reaches out and tentatively brushes a finger over the counter. It tickles a bit, but Shiro doesn’t stop him.</p>
<p>               “What changed?” Keith asks. He looks back up at Shiro. “Something happened to Adam to change it, right?”</p>
<p>               And that’s the question Shiro’s been asking himself for over a year now.</p>
<p>               “Uh, no, actually. It just…” He gestures vaguely. Keith stares, looking just as confused as Shiro feels.</p>
<p>               “Fate doesn’t just change randomly,” Keith says.</p>
<p>               Shiro gives a half-hearted shrug. “Maybe it does.”</p>
<p>               Saying it out loud makes him feel less sure.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               It’s a few months later that Keith hunts Shiro down in the hangar to confront him about his illness and the Kerberos mission.</p>
<p>               “They don’t think I’m fit for the mission,” Shiro spits. “Adam doesn’t think so either.”</p>
<p>               And that lights a fire in Keith’s chest, because Adam is supposed to be there for Shiro no matter what. That’s what soulmate means.</p>
<p>               If he can’t do that, then fuck whatever the universe says. “You should leave him.”</p>
<p>               Shiro’s eyes flash sharp, cutting like steel with the look he gives Keith. It’s a warning, maybe, but Keith doesn’t care. Shiro needs to hear this, whether he likes it or not.</p>
<p>               “You have to go after your dream, Shiro. You deserve to be on that mission more than anyone on the whole base!”</p>
<p>               He’s pathetically aware of how he must look – a scrappy sixteen year old runt, barely reformed delinquent, lecturing the Galaxy Garrison’s Golden Boy. But that’s not how Shiro sees him.</p>
<p>               “If they’re right, if you only have a little time before… If you have a time limit, then that’s more reason to take the chance now. It’s <em> your </em> life, you get to pick it. Isn’t that what you’re always trying to tell me? If Adam’s trying to pick for you then, then. Well, fuck him! Why does he get to decide how you live your life?”</p>
<p>               “It’s not as simple as that, Keith,” Shiro says. He turns his back, leaning in under the hood of the flyer he was working on before Keith stormed in here. The line of his shoulders is so stiff, hunched up in a way that Keith’s never seen. Because this isn’t like Shiro. It’s not like Shiro to cave in to what other people say. Shiro’s the one who taught Keith which Garrison rules are safe to break. Shiro’s the one who taught him to focus on his own opinion of himself and ignore everyone else’s.</p>
<p>               “What’s so complicated?” Keith means to throw it at him like an accusation, but it creaks in his throat and stumbles out more honest, more raw and confused than he meant to be. He frowns, brows pinching with the hurt feeling he can’t quite keep down as he steps over to the base of Shiro’s ladder.</p>
<p>               Shiro doesn’t answer him. Keith waits, impatient but biting it down to try and respect Shiro, to give him a fair stretch of time to think of how to answer. The clink of metal echoes softly off the walls of the garage, and Shiro says nothing.</p>
<p>               Keith waits as long as he possibly can, until he feels anger burning hot in his chest. Until the words come bursting out of him like a firework.</p>
<p>               “Why’s it complicated, Shiro? Because it’s Adam telling you not to? Because he’s your soulmate? So what?”</p>
<p>               Shiro heaves an irritated breath and drags himself out from under the hood to stare down at Keith, not quite glaring. He braces one hand on the edge of the flyer and waits for Keith to go on with a stern light in his eyes.</p>
<p>               Keith feels childish under that gaze. Like a stupid kid pitching a dumb fit. He clenches his fists. “He’s not a good soulmate if he’s just gonna hold you back.”</p>
<p>               “It’s not about holding me back, Keith. He’s just afraid. Of losing time – you of all people should know what it’s like.”</p>
<p>               A low blow. The hardness fades from Shiro’s eyes as soon as he’s said it, instant regret painting his face.</p>
<p>               But Keith’s never been one to take a punch without giving as good as he gets.</p>
<p>               “Who even says he’s your soulmate?”</p>
<p>               It hits. Shiro takes a sharp breath in, eyes widening, and some sick, self-destructive part of Keith is pleased even as a flood of guilt churns like a hurricane in his chest. The panic starts to set in behind it. Running a million different scenarios where Shiro tells him to get lost, tells him he never wants to see him again.</p>
<p>               Out of everything he imagines, none of them are Shiro’s low and resigned, “You’re right.”</p>
<p>               Keith stares at him. Afraid to speak, in case he messes this up worse. Slowly, Shiro comes down the ladder and leans against the side of the flyer with a heavy sigh.</p>
<p>               “I don’t know. I thought, maybe, but you’re right. He isn’t being supportive.”</p>
<p>               Keith’s heart hammers so fast in his chest he can feel his veins vibrating. He trembles as he joins Shiro in leaning against the flyer. Shiro turns out his palm, a wordless apology. Keith takes his hand in his and lets Shiro squeeze it gently.</p>
<p>               “You should live your life the way <em> you </em> want,” Keith says.</p>
<p>               There’s a long moment of quiet between them before Shiro nods.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               Keith spots his counter that night, as he’s dressing for bed.</p>
<p>               01:00:05</p>
<p>               His heart nearly stops.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               Three days later, Shiro tells him he’s joined the Kerberos Mission.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>3.</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               Keith’s clock has two days left when Iverson announces the Kerberos crash.</p>
<p>               It’s all the confirmation he needs. More than enough proof that Shiro is the man his wrist keeps time for.</p>
<p>               He runs. Rampages, first, flies into a self-destructive fit and shatters his last chance, along with some very expensive military tech. Keith’s never crashed a day in his life before now, but his counter blinks 00:00:01 on his sprained wrist when they drag him and the wrecked glider back to the base for a formal discharge.</p>
<p>               Shiro gave him a pair of fingerless gloves for his last birthday that just cover the peaking numbers on Keith’s aching boney wrist. He tugs them on as soon as he packs his things and refuses to take them off, even in the desert heat.</p>
<p>               It isn’t until after two weeks living out in the ruined shack his family once owned that Keith catches another glimpse of his counter. Frozen at 00:00:01.</p>
<p>               He checks it every morning that week and finds the same.</p>
<p>               Always waking up to the last day of Shiro’s life.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               The steady tick down of their counters helps the Kerberos crew keep time during the five month journey. So, when Shiro staggers into his holding cell after his first arena battle, he can’t help glance at his wrist.</p>
<p>               The aliens – Galra, he thinks he heard – stripped him of everything, including his medical bracelet, and there’s nothing to cover the tiny numbers embedded in his wrist.</p>
<p>               He thinks he must have hit his head in that fight, for all the zeros that swim before his eyes. The hefty 40:11:19 he saw the day they landed is gone. Replaced with an unforgiving 01:01:00.</p>
<p>               Barely a year.</p>
<p>               As though it’s a race to see which one of them this captivity will kill first.</p>
<p>               The fights continue, sometimes two or three a day, sometimes weeks of solitary confinement and hazily remembered medical experiments that leave him blearily waking in his cell and checking his wrist for lost time. The obsession keeps him just off the brink of madness, a last thread in an uncoiling rope.</p>
<p>               Until like any other thread, it snaps.</p>
<p>               The fight that takes his arm is over in under an hour and leaves him shaking. His right arm hangs limply at his side, so the arena ring leader raises his left instead to declare him the victor. With the cheers and alien sounds echoing in a cacophony around him, Shiro only has eyes for the faint numbers fading fast from the wrist he cannot feel.</p>
<p>               He has just enough time to read 00:00:13 before the counter sputters out completely. Then the world turns, and fades to black.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               When he next awakes, it’s to the cold air of a medical room and the heavy weight of a metal arm. His silver wrist is a blank slate.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>4.</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               Time dissipates quickly into the void. As soon as the doctors – mad scientists, more like – realize Shiro is awake and aware, they fall upon him like vultures, running test after test, sedating him when he fights and ignoring him when he pleads. They take blood and run scans, examine his pulse and shine lights into his eyes and strap him to tables to poke and prod and make notes in their data pads, chattering over him in a language he knows yet using words that are foreign. <em> Quintessence. Varga. Kuron. </em> It all flies over his head in a blur while they pull him in and out of consciousness for their various experiments.</p>
<p>                When he fully comes to, it’s on another medical table, and his eyes shoot to his metal wrist in a panic. How long has he been out? How long since he last had a counter? How low has that number gone, when there were just a loathsome, luckless thirteen days left before?</p>
<p>               The cold metal offers no answers, and neither do the aliens flitting about the room. Their sharp tools glint in the glaring white light of the sterile space, and in a panic Shiro realizes they’ve come to take something more.</p>
<p>               His pleas fall on unmoved ears until a masked surgeon orders the assistants back, his words like ice through Shiro’s veins.</p>
<p>               “I want him to feel this.”</p>
<p>               Then he swings out at his nearest compatriot, and Shiro’s world sways.</p>
<p>               The fight is too fast to track, over in a heartbeat while Shiro blinks against the half-dose of sedatives in his system and struggles against the doctor’s tampering with his metal arm. There’s a mechanical whirl and a soft burst of light, small but swimming so brightly in Shiro’s muddied gaze.</p>
<p>               The surgeon slaps him across the face, striking clarity back to his mind, and explains his plan of escape.</p>
<p>               It isn’t until Shiro’s staggered halfway down the hall of the medical ward that he notices his metal wrist is glowing.</p>
<p>               60:07:19</p>
<p>               The shock is enough to have him stumbling into a sentry’s cart and blow his cover.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               A year of waking up to the same blinking 00:00:01 takes its toll on Keith. Some days it’s the only thing that keeps him going, keeps him chasing after the thin threads of <em> something </em> tugging him out into the desert, leading him through winding caverns and toward more and more bizarre lion carvings that all point to <em> something </em>.</p>
<p>               Other days, those bleak numbers are what keep him curled up and hollowed out on the decrepit shack couch he’s been calling a bed.</p>
<p>               It’s one of his low days, turned into a low night by the setting desert sun, when Keith is suddenly hit with the sense that <em> something </em> has shifted. It isn’t the same <em> something </em> that’s been pressing in the back of his mind, gaining force with each passing day spent out in the desert. No, this <em> something </em>is under his skin, a part of him like the muscles that cover his bones, like the blood in his veins. Like the numbers in his wrist.</p>
<p>               Keith shudders. Dread and hope and grief and anxiety swirl together in his stomach, churning him into a shaking mess as he stares at his covered right hand. The leather is sleek and unassuming. But underneath, a fire burns.</p>
<p>               His fingers tremble, pinching the edge of his glove like it’s the pin on a grenade.</p>
<p>               Keith sucks in a deep breath. Holds it. Tugs.</p>
<p>               01:00:00</p>
<p>               A year. A <em> year </em>. It’s three years short of the counter he wore before Shiro joined the Kerberos mission, but it’s 365 glorious days more than he had this morning, and this. This is so much more than Keith could ever have hoped. More than he’d dreamed, more than he’s thought possible. More than…</p>
<p>               More than enough to get him on his feet, just in time to see the streak of fire in the night sky hurtling down into the desert as <em> something </em>roars in the back of his mind.</p>
<p>               “Shiro.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>5.</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               Finding Shiro after so long breathes new life into Keith and his counter both. After nearly a year of staring at the same single number, the renewed countdown to Shiro’s true last day of life is overwhelming in the best and worst ways.</p>
<p>               Shiro is alive. Shiro is <em> alive </em> and in front of him, tangible and real and feeling just as intensely like Keith’s <em> home </em> as he ever was, alien arm and all. But if Shiro is alive, then Shiro is going to die, and Keith can’t bear the ache of watching those little numbers in his wrist tick down to the moment when he’ll lose Shiro again, forever.</p>
<p>               He spends another year with his wrist wrapped tight, buried under the strap of leather gloves Shiro gave him.</p>
<p>               Those same gloves are the reason Keith doesn’t know the time’s run out as they head into their battle with Zarkon. That’s what he tells himself against the sudden ache that springs up in his wrist after joining the Blades. It’s how he ignores the burning in his chest when Shiro hugs him so tight, when he clings to him for as long as he dares in the hangar with the rest of the paladins milling about. It’s why he bites back tears and says goodbye like he thinks they’ll both come out of this.</p>
<p>               He <em> knows </em>, but he doesn’t have to know. Doesn’t have to admit it until it’s staring him in the face.</p>
<p>               An empty cockpit. A slumped and lifeless lion. Six zeros burning like fire under his skin.</p>
<p>               Keith tightens the straps of Shiro’s gifted gloves and starts searching.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               It’s months, maybe over a year, before they find him. Keith makes good use of his ambidexterity because the burn in his wrist never goes away, just ebbs and flows, sometimes a simmer, other times an inferno.</p>
<p>               It’s the worst when he steps inside the Black Lion. The last place he saw Shiro, through the grainy image of their comms screens. It’s another reason he hates to go in there, another reason to refuse the mantel everyone wants him to take up, because this is Shiro’s Lion and Keith doesn’t belong in it, isn’t worthy of leading a team and isn’t willing to replace the person he still feels anchored to all the way down to the bone.</p>
<p>               But there’s a universe to protect, and as much as Keith’s insisting to the team and to himself that <em> something </em> can be done for Shiro, that the six zeros branded in his skin are wrong, there won’t be much they can do if the Galra win.</p>
<p>               So he dons the helmet, sits in the chair, and grits his teeth through the white hot burning in his wrist, feeling almost like another’s hand against his skin. </p>
<p>               And then, they find him.</p>
<p>               It’s three excruciating hours before Shiro regains consciousness in his own bed, and Keith stands vigil inside his door, arms crossed tight against his chest. The throbbing in his counter speaks to the impossible – Shiro shouldn’t be here, but he is, because Shiro’s never let something as simple as death stop him.</p>
<p>               It takes everything Keith has not to rush forward when Shiro coughs and shifts awake.</p>
<p>               “Keith?” Shiro croaks when he notices him there.</p>
<p>               “You’re finally awake,” Keith greets. “How are you feeling?”</p>
<p>               “Like I nearly starved to death.” Keith believes it, but Shiro says it with his usual morbid humor, so he must be feeling at least a little alright.</p>
<p>               “Let me get you some water.”</p>
<p>               Keith’s quick to fill a glass. But as he passes it over he nearly spills the whole thing in Shiro’s lap, because the brush of Shiro’s fingers is like white hot metal against his skin. Shiro doesn’t seem to notice.</p>
<p>               “Thank you.” He sips quietly, staring down at his lap. Keith swallows down a gasp of pain and curls his arm around himself, the pain no less now that Shiro’s released him.</p>
<p>               Slowly, Shiro lowers his cup, holding it loosely in his lap. Keith wants to tell Shiro everything is alright now. But for as long as he’s been tormented by the zeros burning in his wrist, he knows Shiro went through far worse torture at the hands of the Galra.</p>
<p>               It makes anger boil up in his chest, swelling and searing almost as much as his wrist. He nearly misses it when Shiro mumbles out a low, “It’s gone.”</p>
<p>               “What’s gone, Shiro?” Keith asks quietly.</p>
<p>               Shiro doesn’t say anything. He lifts his free hand, the low blue lights of the Castle reflecting off the metal of his arm, and turns it for Keith to see. It takes him a second to realize what he’s looking at – or rather, what he’s <em> not </em>.</p>
<p>               Shiro’s wrist is blank. No glowing counter, no finished 00:00:00 tally. Nothing.</p>
<p>               “That’s okay,” Keith says without thinking. Still, as soon as he hears them he knows his words are true. And something settles in him, an admission, an acknowledgement. The pain in his wrist. He knows. He holds out his own arm, wincing, and tugs open the strap on his gloves to show Shiro the dead counter still glowing there. 00:00:00.</p>
<p>               “Mine’s gone too.”</p>
<p>               It doesn’t matter. Whatever fate says or his counter implies. It’s all secondary. He knows in his heart and his <em> soul </em> that Shiro is it for him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>+1</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               The daylight is bright and searing when Shiro comes to, so sharp he squeezes his eyes shut against it. After the dark violets of the Astral Plane inside Black, this stark white sun is too much to handle. But then relief comes, and when Shiro peeks his eyes open he sees Keith leaning over him, black hair haloed in the sunlight.</p>
<p>               “Keith,” Shiro croaks, unbidden and instinctive. He’d reach for him if Keith wasn’t already holding him close to his chest.</p>
<p>               Once he’s gotten his bearings, only one thing comes to mind. It spills out of his mouth, airy with awe and apology both. “You saved me.”</p>
<p>               Keith just smiles, so soft and tender it makes Shiro want to cry, if only he could get a feel for his body.</p>
<p>               “We saved each other.”</p>
<p>               Body be damned. Shiro’s eyes sting sharp until he’s gasping with it, curling closer to Keith and – oh, he’s off balance, part of him missing. Keith catches him, supports him, helps him wrap his only arm around him and choke out the words.</p>
<p>               “I love you.”</p>
<p>               He feels Keith’s grip tighten in his clothes. It’s overwhelming. The surge of emotion breaking free of his chest like water bursting through a dam, the sensation of <em> feeling </em> anything, let alone <em> Keith </em>, so near, holding him like he’ll never let go again.</p>
<p>               “I’m so sorry, Keith. I <em> love </em> you.”</p>
<p>               “You have nothing to be sorry for. I love you too. It’s always been you, Shiro.”</p>
<p>               Keith does pull back then, tightening his grip with one hand even as he draws the other back. Bites into his glove and drags it off to brandish the bare skin of his wrist and his counter.</p>
<p>               “All of this, it’s always been you.”</p>
<p>               The marking there is impossible. But that’s what makes Shiro know it’s true.</p>
<p>               “Keith, your…”</p>
<p>               He wants to trace it, run his finger over the never ending loop, follow the curve again and again. But to brush his fingers over the glowing ∞ symbol would mean letting go of Keith, and he just can’t.</p>
<p>               Keith turns his wrist to see what Shiro means and then lets out a tiny puff of air. He stares, eyes wondrous, but not shocked. Hardly even surprised. Like he knew something like this would happen, but didn’t know how it would look. Like its beauty was inevitable.</p>
<p>               Shiro feels it suddenly, in the phantom of his arm, lost twice now. That inevitability that goes deeper than flesh and bone.</p>
<p>               <em> How do you know when you’ve found your soulmate? </em>Keith asked once, in the warmth of the setting sun. Shiro hadn’t had an answer then. Now that he does, he doesn’t have a counter to show it.</p>
<p>               Like reading his mind, Keith says, “It’s not like they’d do us much good, anyway.” He brings his hand against Shiro’s cheek, tracing his thumb over the tail end of Shiro’s scar. “We’re always going to keep winding back the clock anyway.”</p>
<p>               Shiro tilts forward, pressing his forehead to Keith’s and soaking in the love that pours from his eyes. “As many times as it takes.”</p>
<p>               “To infinity.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>∞</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Alternate title options included <a href="https://youtu.be/EJCq_hnFZyk">"Knowing Time Betrays"</a> and "To Infinity and Beyond"</p>
<p>Find me on twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/maplmoosemuffin">@maplmoosemuffin</a><br/>And don't forget to check out the other beautiful soulmate pieces in the zine <a href="https://t.co/YNK4la9Qrn?amp=1">here</a> !</p></blockquote></div></div>
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